Night In White Satin
by Dawnwind
Summary: After Van is kidnapped, his cell phone provides the clue that allows


Night in White Satin

By Dawnwind

With Pink extolling him to "Get this party started", Van Ray let the needle on the speedometer of his Ferrari creep just above the posted speed limit of Los Angeles. Dangerous for a cop of his rank, but expected for someone with a reputation for fast cars, fast living, and fast women.

Today, as nearly all the time in the last year, he was Van Strummer, a player in the decadent nightlife of LA.

The light turned red and Van slid through the intersection just as the last of the cross traffic cleared. A camera snapped, the flash overly bright in the dark sky, and he grinned, wondering if the traffic monitors caught his good side as he ran a red light.

He slowed, keeping a closer eye on the addresses of the boarded up facades in a row of warehouses. 1999 Club, La Cieniga, there it was. The newest, most rocking night club on the 'In' crowd circuit. Where everyone partied like it was still the 20th Century.

A line of miniskirted party babes and their boy toys were bellied up to a velvet rope overseen by a female bouncer with tats climbing up both arms and up her neck.

Van eyed the crowd, then drove past, trolling for a parking place. Large flood lights, sweeping the sky to lure all and sundry over to 1999 club made it hard to see the gaps between parked cars clearly. The flat light washed out details, causing sharp angled shadows that hid the seedy neighborhood which lurked just outside the periphery of the club. Gentrification was edging out the low lifes but it hadn't completely wrested the property from it's former squatters. There was an whiff of urine and booze that hadn't dispersed just because the elite decided La Cieniga was the place to be this week.

His phone trilled the first notes of _Sweet Caroline_ and he thumbed the talk button. "Dog." Van greeted his partner Deaqon Hayes. "I'm circling 1999 right now."

"Billie got the flash," Deaq said. "I'll be there in 20. Can you hang?"

"No problemo, amigo." Van laughed. He finally saw an empty slot just up ahead, about a block away from the club, and slid the Ferrari in with a flick of his wrist on the steering wheel. Piece o'cake.

"Van Ray?" A voice asked from over to his right, from the sidewalk.

When he looked up, Van came nose to muzzle with an H.&K pistol. Convertibles were so convenient sometimes. A hardtop would have prevented the a-hole from getting so close. "Yeah?" he drawled.

"You're dead, player." The heavyset Asian moved his pistol just a little lower, in line with Van's carotid. He had the squat, toad-like body of one of those Japanese wrestlers, only he wore a poorly fitting suit that pouched in the front because of his ponderous gut, instead of a diaper. Van knew his clothes, this was JCPenney's, and probably bought on sale.

"You wanna point that the other way?" Van kept a smooth, unruffled demeanor even though his heart was jumping like Paris Hilton on speed. He raised a hand to push the gun aside but the Asian slammed the butt onto his shoulder, nearly paralyzing Van's whole arm.

"You'll drive where I tell you." The Asian opened the passenger door and seated himself with sinister domination..

Trying to ignore the agonizing pain running from shoulder to wrist, Van had to use his left hand to raise his right arm up high enough to hook it over the spokes of the steering wheel. "Dude," he said through gritted teeth, frantically searching his memory for who this Sumo might be and why he was carjacking the Ferrari so close by the 1999 Club.

"Drive."

"I can't move my hand!"

The sinister man shoved the pistol so hard into his prisoner's neck that Van gagged. "Hit reverse and drive," Sumo commanded.

Van steered the car past the club, wondering how soon it would be before Deaq realized he was missing. The Asian directed him though a dizzying series of rights and lefts but Van knew the city well enough that he wasn't lost--yet. They were getting to the borders of his familiar territory, though. The last two street signs had been either damaged, graffitied, or lost, so he hadn't caught the names of cross streets.

He looked ahead, the road was deserted here, not another car for several blocks. Up ahead, the stoplight flipped from green to yellow and Van sped up, judging the car's entrance into the intersection as the red light changed. The red light camera flashed once, but the car continued past, the gun still hovering inches from Van's heart. He was directed to make several more rights and lefts, but again, it was too dark to make out which streets he was turning onto.

"Pull in here," Sumo pressed the button n a remote he pulled from his pocket and a metal gate slid silently open.

"Billie?" Deaq scanned the gyrating crowd of Club 1999 once more, pressing the cell phone to his ear. "Give Van a ping? He ain't showed and the buyer is coming in now."

"Must not have been able to find a parking place," Billie harrumphed, hitting end on her phone. She hurriedly punched speed dial for Van's phone, listening to it ring incessantly. Where was he?

Van winced at as the pistol jabbed into his ribs. If the Asian tripped or tightened his finger on the trigger, a bullet would slam right through Van's body, killing him instantly. Not a good thought right at this moment.

"Walk," the huge man ordered. "Around the back."

With the pistol poking him the correct direction, Van walked down a flagstone path into a dark, murky yard. To the right, the large bulk of a house loomed over them like an oppressive weight. Where was this place and why were they here?

Van's heart went into triple time when the sound of _Sweet Caroline_ jingled from his pocket. So Deaq or Billie were already looking for him. That was good.

"Throw it away."

Deaq took a long swallow of his pale ale, scanning the vibrating room. Multicolored lights splashed the walls and floors, changing with the violent beat of the retro '80s music. The play rotation already hurt his ears. He'd heard The-Artist-Formerly, or still, Deaq could never remember which, Known-as-Prince far more than he'd ever cared to in his entire life, and he'd only been in the place half an hour.

Club 1999 was rocking, sweaty, beautiful bodies colliding in sex-drenched celebration. But not one of the dancers on the floor was a narrow hipped white boy with green eyes. Van Ray wasn't in the building. Deaq had already checked the bathrooms and more 'private' booths, but with the buyer just sidling up to the bar, he couldn't wait for his partner any longer.

The whole encounter took a mere five minutes, and three of those were convincing the buyer that Van's absence wasn't suspicious. Everything went smooth as silk, a classic meet which set up a strong connection with one of the most dangerous drug dealers in the city. Once they had a little more background information on the man, another meet would be set up--this time with LA's finest waiting in the wings to draw a noose around his organization.

But where was Van? Deaq left the club with a kilo of uncut heroin in his jacket pocket, feeling distinctly vulnerable. Not like anyone knew what he was carrying, but if he were stopped by a patrol officer, he could be in big shit. Neither he nor Van ever carried their badges, and were unknown to most of the local constabulary. If he were caught, he could be charged with possession and Billie would throw an absolute fit having to untangle all the red tape that would cause. With this in mind, Deaq didn't dawdle on the sidewalk, heading back to his car parked less than a block away. Parking couldn't be the reason Van never showed.

Something bad had happened.

To quote any character in a Star Wars movie, he had a bad feeling about this.

"Okay, here's what I have," Billie said grimly. She typed rapidly on her computer keyboard and brought up a picture of a Ferrari on the screen. "Van ran a red light one mile from Club 1999, and less than fifteen minutes later, he did it again five miles away. Now, I know he likes going fast, but I gotta wonder…" The picture changed to a similar one of the same Ferrari.

"How did you get that?" Deaq asked, his casual slouch belying his concern for his partner.

"I programmed all our license plates into the traffic signal camera. If you go through too fast, you get tagged by my computer, and mine only." Billie grinned grimly. "You two get lost too easily."

"Not me. Did you tell Van about that?"

"And loosen my grip on his leash?" She shook her head.

Deaq frowned at the fuzzy photo taken by the stop light camera. "Can you put those pictures up side by side?"

This was easily accomplished and both detectives examined the photos closely. Although not portrait studio quality, it was easy enough to recognize their missing detective in the driver's seat.

"Look." Billie tapped her manicured nail on the liquid screen, rippling the image for a moment. Like one of those games in a kid's magazine at the dentist's office, the two pictures were not identical.

"There's someone else in the car," Deaq said.

Stumbling forward across a darkened lawn prodded by the gun in his ribs, Van tried to think of ways to escape. None of his frantically thought up scenarios changed the fact that he would, in all probability, die. The gun was too close. Even if he pretended to sprain an ankle or tumble forward, his captor would shoot before putting out a hand to prevent him from falling.

They crossed the yard and went behind a small tool shed. Seeing the hole dug behind the shed, Van turned back in shock just as the Asian swung a massive fist, striking him on the right side of his jaw. Van had no time to jerk away and he could feel the barrel of the gun press even more deeply into his side, pulling up his shirt and scraping the skin along his ribs as he fell head first into the grave.

Ling Do Fong didn't waste any time. He turned the detective over onto his back, avoiding the smear of blood on his jaw. After cranking open the spigot on the oxygen tank, he slipped the plastic mask around the head of his unconscious victim. Van Ray lay like one dead, his face turned to one side so that the blood leaking from the gash soaked into the white satin of the coffin lining.

Raising his foot, Fong kicked the open lid of the coffin so that is crashed down into place, sealing the unfortunate man inside. With a grunt of displeasure Fong shoveled dirt into the hole until the box disappeared from view. Then, dusting off his hands, he left the yard, walking around the house to his car. His part in the operation was complete.

There was a lead weight on his chest. Van tried to pull in a few deep breaths but that only hurt worse. What the hell was wrong? If this was a hangover, he didn't remember getting drunk, and where was the fun in that? He inhaled again and winced. Raising his hand to rub the ache in his head, he smacked his hand on something padded with satin.

His eye snapped open, but there was no difference between having them open or closed. He was in the dark. Complete dark. Desperately he felt around each side of the narrow box. A coffin! When the Asian hit him, he'd fallen into a coffin.

Bile rose in Van's gorge and he just avoided hurling into the enclosed space. With effort he clamped his lips shut, afraid to befoul his prison. He twisted upward, pressing against the lid. It didn't budge.

Van whacked the flat of his hand against the smooth satin, ripping the fabric. "Hey, somebody!" It belatedly occurred to him that no one could hear his cries through the thick walls of the coffin, and he sank back with fear. Was this how he would die? Alone, none of his family or friends knowing where he was? Surely Billie or Deaq had been calling him just before he was struck from behind?

"Get me out of here!" he screamed, and the words seared his throat. It truly hurt to breathe, the air heavy and thick like smog in a windless summer afternoon. He was going to suffocate.

The phone rang when Billie and Deaq were still peering at the computer screen. Billie picked it up without taking her eyes off the image of a heavyset Asian man. "Yes?" she barked.

Deaq watched her, inwardly admiring how she could listen to whatever was being said without changing her expression once. The woman must be one hell of a poker player.

"Good," Billie barked. "I'll have my man on it right away. Have cruisers standing by in that area, as well, but Deaqon Hayes is on point, and everyone else answers to him, capiche?"

"What?"

"I had the signal from Van's cell phone triangulated. We got an address of 1345 Mockingbird Terrace, in Inglewood. Get over there now, but keep under the radar."

"Billie," Deaq chastised gently. "I know how to find my partner."

"Keep me informed!" Billie snapped.

"You wanna come?"

She looked interested for about two seconds, fear for Van's safety plain, then her pretty face shuttered closed again. "No, I need to stay where I have total communications at my fingertips."

"I got a cell, and a Blueberry," Deaq reminded, already hurrying down the steps of her elevated office. "Decide now, cause I'm about to jet."

"I'm your co-pilot." Billie grabbed a short purple leather jacket that matched the purple leather skirt she was wearing. Her heels clattered on the stairs when she ran after Deaq.

Wheezing in the thick air, Van arched upward to try pounding on the unyielding lid once again. He felt something bump against his cheek and clawed weakly at it. What the fuck was that?

A plastic oxygen mask hung loosely from green elastic bands. In his frenzied movements to try and escape the coffin he must have knocked the mask loose and not noticed it again. Slipping it back into place over his nose and mouth, he tried unsuccessfully to tighten the elastic straps. Just one breath of the sweet, intoxicating oxygen was enough to bring back his addled senses. He needed to slow down and think of alternatives because digging his way out of satin and hard wood wasn't feasible. After three or four more inhalations, Van looked around him more calmly. Whoever the Asian was, he must not have meant for Van to die. Otherwise he wouldn't have provided him with life-saving gas. Or was it just a ploy to extend the terror of being locked inside a coffin waiting to die? This way he wouldn't die right away, but have hours to lie here awaiting the final moments after the oxygen tank ran dry.

A great fan of the Discovery channel, Van had recently watched an episode of the goofy Mythbusters. Co-hosts Jamie and Adam had proved that the if someone were trapped inside a coffin, if only took 45 minutes for the carbon dioxide levels to rise to dangerous and deadly levels. So how long did he have with a tank of oxygen? A few hours longer? And how long had he been in here so far?

With renewed fear, Van set about systematically dismantling the satin lining from the lid above him. His arms ached after only a short time pulling and ripping at the fabric, but quickly he had the wooden shell in sight. He pushed again, just to prove to himself that if wouldn't budge, and as he did so, another terrorizing thought occurred to him. What if he were buried under the ground?

"Can you read the street signs around here?" Deaq bitched, driving as quickly as he dared when he was damn near lost and afraid of missing his turn. The suburban streets were dark and deserted, no one else worried about a missing police officer. "Like all the kids in the neighborhood decided to take 'em all down."

"According to the GPS, Mockingbird should be just up ahead." Billie pointed to the right. Deaq swung the steering wheel around, turning sharply into a quiet neighborhood.

"Doesn't seem like the place our boy Van would linger," Deaq said doubtfully. "Not his kinda vibe."

"I'll tell him you said so." Billie gave a strange, brave little grin, then dialed her phone swiftly, the illuminated buttons gleaming greenly in the darkened interior of the car.

"You get anything?" she asked tersely.

Deaq had finally located Mockingbird, to his immense relief, and was peering at the house numbers. These were big, older places where families from several decades ago raised large passels of children in relative luxury and security without the paranoia of the current millennium. No worries about drugs or gangs back then. A lot like the house he had been raised in. It gave him a pang to think what he'd do if he had to tell his parents that Van was missing or even dead. They loved the cocky little son of a forger like their own, having drawn him into the family when he was Dre's partner, long before Deaq had even returned as the prodigal son.

"Nothing?" Billie grit her teeth, holding her cell so tightly Deaq could imagine the plastic cover bending under her fingers. "Find out who the bastard is!" She snapped the phone closed with a muttered curse. "Nobody has anything on that Asian in their databases."

"This is it," Deaq said, and even to him his voice sounded strange. "Want to climb over the gate in that skirt?"

"Go for it, I'll call for back up."

Deaq was out of the car before his brain had a chance to kick in. Climb over an eight foot fence? He grasped the decorative iron loops and curls of the massive gate, scrambling up like he had in the fourth grade when he'd discovered that lurking in the local cemetery was a good way to scare his fellow classmates. With any luck, this place wasn't littered with coffins.

Van was getting tired, even with the oxygen mask, it was more difficult to breathe. His head throbbed, and raising his arms upwards had brought back the deep pain from where the Asian had smacked him with the pistol. If he weren't so determined to find a way out he wasn't sure his arm would continue to function.

He closed his eyes, fighting back the paralyzing terror, surprised to find that his first thought was of his father. No one, at the present, knew where Ray Ray was. A few months back Van had gotten a postcard from Sweden, of all places. He doubted, even if Ray Ray had actually mailed it himself, which was unlikely, that he had been in Sweden for very long. Maybe he was traveling across Europe learning how to forge the Euro?

Van laughed at this new enterprise and gave another heave on the coffin lid. It didn't budge. So this was how it was going to end, huh? Suffocating in a coffin, and he hadn't the slightest idea who the Asian was, who he worked for, or why he would want to kidnap Van. If it was because of his status as a cop, there were too many variables to come up with a solution here, without the aid of computers and access to past cases.

What if the Asian left fingerprints in the Ferrari? This was a vaguely cheering thought. Unable to push any harder against the wooden roof above him, Van lay very still, breathing. His heart was trip-hammering, and his face felt flushed. The oxygen in the tank was definitely not helping as much as it had when he first replaced the mask.

What had he been thinking about? Oh, yeah, fingerprints in the Ferrari. When Deaq found the car, they'd search it for clues. Where had the Asian touched? The passenger door, mostly. He hadn't even buckled up.

Deaq.

Next to his father, Van found himself thinking about his partner the most. Would Deaq find him? He had to have missed him by now--the meet with Carneros! What if Carneros pulled a piece on Deaq and killed him, since Van hadn't been there for back-up.

With this frightening though, Van once again reached up frantically to push against the coffin. The pain in his arms blossomed all the way from shoulder to wrist and they crumpled across his face, dislodging the green plastic breathing mask.

His Tommy Hilfigers had ripped up the inseam and his Warriors jersey was covered in grime, but Deaq was over the gate. He leaned against the post to catch his breath, smacking the gate release with the flat of his hand.

Billie drove the car through the gap, getting out impatiently. "This is the address the signal from Van's phone indicated. Do you have a flashlight?"

"Uh," Deaq pulled a pistol out of the glove compartment and checked the clip. "I got my Eagle."

"Men!" Billie rolled her eyes. "Not much help in a pitch black yard, is it?" She flipped open the trunk of the car and extracted two large flashlights. "Take it and don't trip over your size twelves."

"Like those spiky things you're wearing were intended for walking in grass," Deaq muttered, playing the beam of his flashlight around the yard. The house, while well tended and elegant in design, appeared completely deserted. There were no curtains in the windows or visible furniture. No newspapers littered the front walkway and no irate owner came running out to berate them for scaling his gate.

"Van would say this place was creepy," Deaq said so that he didn't sound like a wuss in front of Billie.

"Oh, Van would say, huh?"

"He has a way with words sometimes." Deaq didn't like the feel of the place. Although he'd never admit it out loud, the gate was not the only reminder of a cemetery. There was something about this place, the smell of death?

"Smells like fresh dirt." Billie toed off the purple mules that matched her skirt, and replaced them with grungy looking sneakers.

Deaq didn't know when she'd had time to pack all this. Did she keep emergency supplies with her always? He'd have to try that sometimes. He and Van had been caught unawares more times that he wanted to remember, especially right this moment. "You got some super olfactory powers?"

"No, my mother used to dig in the garden a lot." Billie pushed aside some droopy foliage hanging from a willow, walking carefully into the yard.

Wondering if this was what it was like to go on a manhunt with a bloodhound, Deaq let her sniff the air, and stood quietly in the inky yard. The house threw shadows across the lawn because of the street lamps on Mockingbird. He didn't see any sign of Van, and was beginning to wonder if this was a bust. Somehow the kidnapper, if that was the right word here because Deaq didn't want to think about murderers, had left Van's cell in this area to throw them off the trail. Or maybe it was in the house?

"Billie, did you get a warrant for…?" Deaq took two steps toward her and heard something crunch under his foot. "Da-mn." He swore ghetto-style, giving the word two syllables.

"What?"

"Found his phone." Deaq picked the smashed but familiar rectangle of plastic and circuitry out of the grass. He knew his partner's phone like his own. He'd used it plenty of times. "Then he was here."

"Unless someone put it here as a diversion," Billie finished.

Deaq hated hearing his own misgivings voiced aloud. "Ain't no blood on it."

"I still smell freshly turned earth." Billie went back to her quest but the sound of a car turning into the drive startled them both. A red and blue light could be seen even this far from the front of the house, revolving lazily in the darkness. "Reinforcements."

"Goody for us," Deaq swallowed the acidy taste in the back of his mouth. "What's that?" He had rounded the small tool shed from one direction just as Billie came around the other side.

"I want it to be a vegetable bed," Billie said in a small voice. "Find a shovel, NOW."

She was already on her hands and knees, regardless of her fancy leather ensemble and manicure, digging frantically at the loose dirt.

The door to the tool shed hung on a rusty and none too reliable hinge that squeaked in protest when Deaq wrenched it open. The two uniforms came running into the back yard at the noise, their guns at the ready. "We may have someone buried alive," Deaq barked at them, grabbing as many tools as he could. Several shovels, rakes and hoes tumbled over onto the floor, but he already had a sturdy spade, and was immediately shoveling dirt faster than Billie could with her hands.

The coffin wasn't down six feet, in fact, it was basically only covered with dirt, just enough to hide the curved top. Deaq's shovel hit the wooden lid within minutes and he thought his heart would leap right out of his chest. _This couldn't be, Van would not be in there!_

"Who's in there?" the Chicano looking cop asked in a hushed tone, and crossed himself.

Useless, Deaq thought, trying to uncover the sides enough to get a purchase on the lid. If he could just slide his fingers under the edge, but the grave was small, and the coffin only barely fit in.

"Open it!" Billie's voice was halfway between a breathless squeak and a shrill little shriek. She had her cell phone out and was dialing frantically.

Deaq had never heard her quite so terrified. Or maybe it was himself who was terrified, and he was projecting. Whatever it was, his mind kept skittering away from the idea that Van might have been buried alive. Maybe, just maybe, this was some sick sort of joke.

The blond uniformed cop was busy digging on the far end of the grave, and with his help, Deaq got the entire thing visible. Then, leaning down into the shallow hole, he grasped the lid and pulled. "Van!"

A shower of dirt flew up as Deaq and the blond jerked the casket open. In the only part of his brain that was operating rationally, Deaq could hear Billie talking rapidly to dispatch, requesting an ambulance as fast as one could come.

Staring down at his partner laying like a corpse, Deaq was momentarily stunned, but he forced himself to reach down, touch the warm flesh. Warm flesh. Van was still alive! His face was mottled and bluish gray, and he took a shuddery half breath that in no way improved his color. Then his eyelids fluttered.

"Van! Hey!" Deaq went down on his knees, squeezing into the coffin to pick up Van's limp body. He was breathing erratically, and his pulse was agonizingly slow, but he was most definitely alive. "Get him up on the grass!" Deaq yelled, The one called Lopez finally got into the action, big enough to lift slender Van up like he was a young boy.

"Paramedics are on the way." Billie brushed a hand down Van's cheek. "He's in shock, Deaq, get a blanket out of the car."

"Got one already." Lopez grabbed it out of his blond partner's hands and covered Van.

Maybe it was just fresher air, or the blanket, but Van began to cough and wheeze violently, his whole body arching to draw in more oxygen.

"Hey, take it easy there," Deaq soothed. "Can you open your eyes, player? Tell us what happened?"

Where's he?" Van squeaked, his eyes still not open, but his color improving, even in the white light of the flashlights.

"The Asian? Gone, and so far we haven't even gotten so much as his name off that picture," Billie said.

"Good likeness of you. I liked the first one bett-ah, though," Deaq bantered, looking over at Lopez and Somers roping off the crime scene. "Without your ride-along."

"Didn't get me from my good side," Van whispered, his voice as dry a chalk. "Lemme up, maybe we can get prints…"

"Stay right where you are," Billie barked in her best no nonsense voice. Van nearly always responded automatically even though he'd whine like a ten year old.

Deaq was cheered to see all three of them settling back into their natural habits. Billie, the older sister with all the rules, himself the supposedly sensible one, and Van the impulsive youngest child, prone to bouts of pouting. Right then, he had barely enough energy to move, but his lower lip was poking out like he'd missed out on dessert. "On what, lover? Nothing to get prints off of," Deaq asked, pressing gently on his friend's shoulder to keep him supine.

"The Ferrari? The coffin."

"Car was gone when we pulled up, but I got your phone." Deaq pulled the remains out of his pocket. "Beyond repair."

"He took the Ferrari?" Van wailed, and tried again to get up. This time he got far enough to go dizzy and wavered, one hand on his head. "Son of a bitch."

"We'll find it," Billie said grimly. "Did he say anything to you? Any reason for grabbing you?"

"Nothing, Climbed into the car and told me to drive. Didn't take no for an answer." Van rubbed his right shoulder with his left hand, wincing. "Smacked me hard with the butt of his gun."

"You've got a gash above your ear." Deaq poked at the matted blood in his dark blond hair.

"Cut it out! That hurts." Van whined. He looked distinctly ill, holding his belly with the unmistakable sign of someone who was going to lose his last meal any moment.

Deaq was never more glad to hear the paramedics tramping through the back garden in his life.

Van took a careful and very grateful breath of air in, and slowly blew it out again, like he'd been taught in yoga classes. In and out. He was alive, and lying on an ER gurney instead of slippery white satin, and quite content. He didn't quite remember every second of his time in the coffin, but what he did was the stuff of nightmares for years to come. Knowing his own propensity for bad dreams, he was already dreading trying to sleep for the next few days. What unparalleled joy, to relive one of the most horrible experiences of his life night after night. He'd rather stay up and listen to late night college courses on trigonometry and calculus.

He had been stunned to find out that he'd only been in the ground for just over an hour. And although the kidnapper hadn't sent any ransom or demands as far as anyone could tell, he had been solicitous enough to include an oxygen tank. Had he meant all along for Van to be rescued? It was pure luck that Deaq and Billie had found him in time, because when one of the paramedics examined the oxygen tank, he explained that it was empty. A tank that should have held enough for three hours hadn't supplied enough gas for one. The entire thing was a mystery.

Moving his right arm gingerly in the sling, Van winced. His shoulder wasn't broken, only severely bruised, the swelling pressing on nerves that connected with the hand. That was why he still couldn't move his fingers well enough to make a fist. The scalp wound had proved to be a prodigious bleeder but not wide enough to warrant stitches, and aside from a nasty looking scrape along his ribs, Van was healthy. It felt weird to have looked death straight on and be alive to tell about it so shortly afterwards.

He'd been on his way to Club 1999 at seven thirty and it was only ten thirty now. Three hours.

"Hey, baby," Deaq greeted brightly, carrying two cans of soda. "Got you lemon-lime in case you rolf again."

"I did not rolf!" Van guzzled the soda greedily. His throat felt raw and sore like he was coming down with something, but he wasn't. At least not according to all the tests the doctors had taken.

"When can I get out of this place. I want my own hotel room bed and room service."

"Did I not just provide you with a cold, refreshing drink to quench your thirst?"

"Yeah, but you got the cheap stuff. Not even a real Sprite."

"What they had in the machine, Don-o-van," Deaq said dryly. "You're lookin' pretty good for someone who just about got the silver medal for most best impression of a corpse." He laughed at Van's sour expression. "I gotta say, white satin ain't your color."

"I always did like silk better. They breathe." Van sat up with infinite care, very glad of Deaq's steadying hand on his back. "Let's blow this pop stand, huh?"

"Doc said she'd be back soon with the paperwork to spring you."

"How are you feeling?" Billie pushed the ER cubicle curtain aside with her usual no nonsense bustle. She eyed Van critically, her eyes soft and caring for just a moment, before going back to the matter at hand. "I talked to Interpol. They ID'd the Asian as Ling Do Fong, a French national."

"He's French?" Deaq asked in surprise.

"Didn't sound French." Van tried to remember any particular inflections in the man's voice. He just hadn't said that much. "But then, he didn't sound Chinese, either."

"Whatever, he's worked on various mob related jobs, sometimes connected with one group, sometimes another. At present, the most reliable source says his last known associates were a large, loosely organized group with fingers in all sorts of illegal activities including money laundering, internet theft, and forgery. Well made counterfeit Euros have been popping up all over the EOC." She looked up from her hand written notes, staring at Van. "Does that ring a bell with you?"

"Ray Ray?" Van breathed out his father's name. "He couldn't."

"You tol' me he sent you a card from Denmark." Deaq took a long drink from his coke.

"Sweden," Van corrected, barely able to breathe. Only this time, he had enough oxygen, but his muscles seemed frozen. "Something must of happened to him. We've got to locate Ray Ray, now."

"Already in the works, sweet cheeks." Billie agreed soberly. "I've got feelers out as we speak. But I have to tell you, Interpol already said that LAPD has no jurisdiction in this matter."

"Like hell! Fong tried to kill me."

"Yes, and we haven't located him."

The blond ER doctor who had flirted outrageously with both Van and Deaq through the entire exam brought the discharge papers back and released her patient. She pushed a long list complications from head wounds into Van's hand as they left, but he crumpled it into a ball and dropped it into the trash on the way out of the hospital.

After refusing to be taken home until he had an answer for his father's whereabouts, Van insisted they convene at the Candy Store. It was to be a long wait. He fell asleep by quarter to twelve, leaving Billie typing furiously on her Mac, and Deaq bouncing a basketball on the court below.

When the phone finally rang, Deaq made a rim shot without even looking at the basket and ran up the steps to Billie's aquarium-like office. "What?"

Van was rubbing sleep out of his eyes, his color still wan and washed out. "Is it about Ray Ray?"

Billie waved them to silence, nodding at whatever the caller was saying. "I'm getting it now," she verified as new information came up on her screen.

"Billie!" Van demanded even before she had finished disconnecting the call.

"Patience is a virtue you never got, is it?" She sniped. "Two things. The Ferrari was found at LAX in short term parking. No one with the name Ling Do Fong used a passport for an international flight, but that means nothing. He could have flown anywhere on a domestic airline, and then switched to overseas carriers in another city. The lab is processing the car now. As for Ray Ray, he's in a Belgium jail right now, awaiting extradition to France on a forgery charge. He's been making Euros, as you might have guessed."

"But he's safe?" Van closed his eyes in relief, not sure why he cared about the old man. Maybe as Billie had once said, he really did love his father, he just didn't want to admit it.

"So that's it? This Fong buries Van alive for no reason that we can come up with, and it's over?" Deaq growled.

"If he's flown the country, there's little we can do," Billie said softly, but the purple color above her eyes only intensified the hardness of her gaze. "We're not the police of the whole world, guys. But this is far from over, let me tell you."

"Amen to that." Deaq punctuated the sentence by slapping his hand on the arm of the chair.

"What if I want it to be over?" Van challenged, rotating his neck, already aching from the weight of the sling. Turning his head just made it hurt that much worse. "What if we just chalk this one up as unsolvable and leave it be. 'Cause I'm not so sure I really want to know what they wanted to do. Fong must have botched it up big time for you to find me so easily. And that's how it ends--everybody goes home alive for once, huh?"

"Can you do it, player?" Deaq asked more gently. "Let this lie?"

"You set up a meet with Carneros?" Van sidestepped the question.

"Not yet. He wasn't happy you weren't there, think the guy has thehots for you, but he got over it. He made a small sale, we glad handed each other, and exchanged IM addresses. It'll happen."

"Good. Billie can back you up on this one, I'm going out to Belgium on the first flight I can get." Van stood, refusing to give in to his dizziness, and turned to leave.

"That's letting it lie?" Deaq sounded incredulous.

"That's a son going to his father," Billie approved. "I'll book a flight."

FIN


End file.
